This Home
by the-cockroach-house
Summary: New house, new paint, new life. AU where instead, Luca comes for Lincoln after they rebuild.
1. Chapter 1

_Alternate timeline where Luca comes for Linc after they have already settled back into domestic life.  
_ _Written from changing points of views. I hope it isn't too confusing._

 **This Home**

* * *

The best part of the week was getting to hang out with his uncle after school every day. He loved having his mom pick him up, but running out those front doors to uncle Linc's awesome two-seater car made him feel like the coolest kid in school. And before he ever starts up that noisy engine, he always lets him push the button to make the top go down.

Mike sometimes overhears the teachers on guard duty talk about uncle Linc —how big he is or strong or something. Well, he doesn't think his uncle is fat at all, and he's beaten him at arm wrestling a couple of times, so he's not even that strong. He just rolls his eyes, because those ladies don't know uncle Linc like he does.

His car is really loud —too loud to really have a conversation, even with the roof back on. He usually talked about his day with his mom, and always _certainly_ with his dad whenever he picked him up. But maybe uncle Linc got this car so he didn't have to listen to anybody. Maybe it was so he didn't have to listen to himself think.

The engine is so loud, everything in the car vibrates. When they finally pull up into the driveway and park, the still ground feels funny underneath his shoes. When his uncle kills the engine, the world is quiet again, as if the only thing that was ever alive was that car.

* * *

"Honey, how was school today?" Sara is nearly done painting the living room of their new place.

"It was fun," he says out of habit. He hangs his backpack and jacket up by the door. "Oh, and the book fair's coming on Friday!" His excitement is genuine this time.

"That's new. You better bring your wallet on Friday, then," she reminds him.

"Already on it."

Linc comes in and shuts the door behind him. "Go wash up," he says firmly, and pushes Mike's head towards the hallway. "That preschool teacher's been eyeing me," he confesses as soon as Mike is out of range.

"Don't they all? I didn't get many complaints when I told the other moms that you'd be picking him up," Sara doesn't turn from the wall she's painting.

"Yea, well. I might start wearing a turtle neck."

She lets out a laugh and turns around. "Oh, I would love to see you try and put one on." She laughs again at the thought and resumes painting. His laughter, on the other hand, trails off into the other room. It's so warmingly contagious that whenever she hears it, she doesn't forget that at one point, there was a good chance that she would never get to know what it would sound like.

* * *

Linc helps himself to kitchen. His fridge is never as stocked as this one, especially with Sheba out of the country the last two weeks. Apart from the condiments, he had eaten mostly everything edible in that apartment.

He just didn't feel comfortable in a grocery store; he didn't really know what to get and how much. Beers and some chips were what he knew, and you didn't need to go into a grocery store for those. When Sheba gets back from the embassy, he'd have to remember to come along with her.

He hears light footsteps running his way. "Ok, I'm ready."

"Good," he answers, a mouth full of chocolate pudding.

* * *

They're in the front yard, finally playing with that slingshot he gave Mike for his birthday, much to Michael's disapproval. It's a little destructive —he knows, but hell, he's always wanted one when he was a punk kid and now he's finally got one.

Inside, Sara smiles as she watches them from the other side of the kitchen window. This new house is smaller, less spacious than Jacob's. And after being in a cell for _so long_ , she wonders if Michael had picked this place because familiarity, no matter the circumstance, is still profoundly comforting.

She's washing some plates in a sink that is a little bit aged. The porcelain is unevenly blotched a sick beige, and overall, far too small to use for the three of them. Sara revisits that old house in her mind —the layout of the living room, the way it opens up into the dining space. She walks herself into that bedroom.

But that was a _house_. And this? This is _home_.

Linc has an empty soda can balanced on his head. This alone conjures up an audible chuckle from her. "Always getting into trouble," she sighs out to no one in particular. She shakes her head though, enthused, as she starts scrubbing last night's pot.

* * *

 _If you want to follow along with supporting gifs, I'm actually writing this on my tumblr:_ _the-cockroach-house tumblr com_


	2. Chapter 2

**This Home**

* * *

He's reluctant, but his uncle has always been gentle in encouraging him.

"Don't go closing your eyes now," he lets out a hearty laugh.

"I won't," he says shyly, and gives him a halfhearted thumbs up.

Linc warmly returns the gesture. "Keep your arm high, Mikey. I'd rather get hit in the face than below."

He loads a marble and pulls it back, remembering to keep his elbow up. It's nerve-wracking, and a little fun. He closes one eye and aims. He entertains the thought of closing the other eye too.

 _CLINK_

The can gets knocked from on top of Linc's head. He turns around just to be certain and finds the can a few feet from him. The face he makes as he turns back around embarrasses Mike quite a bit. Linc can see from the corner of his eye that Sara has her hand over her mouth. He can't hear it, but he knows that held-back , muffled laugh so well now, ever since they've been home.

Without a doubt, Linc is definitely having more fun. Though Mike does love playing with his uncle, he's acting as though he just found real treasure or something.

"Way to go buddy!" he screams as he runs over and picks Mike up into a hug.

Mike flashes him a half grin and a full shrug. It was a lucky shot, especially if he counted up all the hundreds of times he had already hit his uncle in the face that day.

"You're a good shot," he tussles Mike's hair roughly.

Sara shakes her head again, smiling. These are the moments she loves to tell Michael before they drift off every night. The thought pulls her away, and the faucet continues to run over the dishes.


	3. Chapter 3

**This Home**

* * *

Time moves slow at this home. It savors and stills with these people. A day like this could go on forever.

Days like these, Mike wishes it does. He just knows now _—_ with all the certainty that his ten year old body could ever muster up, that this is his family. This is his _real_ family. And this new place, was his _real_ home.

His uncle is ecstatic, laughing a little too maniacally, squishing him in his bear hug. But he isn't afraid. No, he's never been afraid of his uncle. He laughs too. Not because shooting a can with a slingshot is unbearably fun for him, but because he's just so innocently empathetic that suddenly, he's having such a wonderful time too. In his arms, Mike is at eye level with his uncle. He mirrors his laughter, the intensity too. The yard and the world is alive once again.

A black car creeps into his vision, and his smile fades. His hand grips the slingshot tightly. Whoever it is, he'll protect them.

Uncle Linc is so absorbed in the moment; he can see it in his eyes. He's been so… calm lately. His shoulders are relaxed, and they never were before. It must be this new home, he reasons. Everybody has been happier since.

The car crawls to a stop right in front of them and the window rolls down.

"Hey Burrows!"


	4. Chapter 4

**This Home**

* * *

It's the sound of a gun being cocked that really turns him around. Not the car pulling up so close to them, or the whir of the window mechanics, or even the sound of Luca Abruzzi's voice behind him.

In an instance, Linc puts Mike down behind him and brings his arms back to keep him hidden.

He doesn't shut his eyes. He just blinks.

He blinks once, and everything is blue. He hears the sound of Mike wailing and it breaks his heart. "You alright?" he wants to ask, but he's not sure why he can't. Everything is just blue.

* * *

That familiar sound of gun shots. And God, she hates that it's familiar.

She thinks it was five shots. She only thinks, because she runs out after the first, towel in soaked hands. Her pulse is pounding in her ears. If she'd just focused on its rhythmic song long enough, it'd put in her in a calming trance. But her eyes betray her.

A moment before, they were playing in the yard, _alive_. Now, the two are lying on the ground. The sight of it makes her heart drop so hard that she takes in a sharp gasp and stop dead before them. The neighborhood is eerily quiet all of a sudden, save for Mike's cries, which snaps her out of her shock. The pregnant woman next door has come out to her porch to check the noise. The others? It's four o'clock on a school day; they're all at work.

"Call an ambulance!" Sara shouts out to her. Her voice is shaky, like it's been unused for weeks. As a matter of fact, it really hasn't been used like that since then, not for situations like these.

Not for desperate screams and anguished cries. Those days were behind her.

She rushes over, falling on her knees by his side. Her eyes fight its way to examine her son first, but Lincoln's stillness worries her to death. The blood that's seeping heavily from under his shirt draws her trained hands toward him though. She kneels and she presses the towel over his chest.

She he notes how dilated his pupils are. He's staring up right at her, she thinks, but as her shifts her weight to turn to Mike, his eyes don't follow.

"Honey, come here," she breathes out. "Let me take a look at you."

Mike is weeping now. He crawls over to her and shows her his shoulder that's oozing blood down his sleeve. The sobs he tries to hold back bursts out again and again.

"Listen to me baby," she's doing her best to sound calm, "Run to Mrs. Gill's house so she can wrap this up, ok? Can you do that for me?"

He only nods obediently and stumbles up. She watches as his picks himself up and makes his way down the sidewalk. Teresa Gill has a phone to her ear, held there by her shoulder. She runs out from her porch and scoops up Mike in her arms and rushes him inside.

The sudden gasped coughing breaks her thought. "Is...he…...okay?" Linc finally makes a sound. His voice is breathless and shallow.

"He's -he's okay." Sarah wants to reassure him. She tries to smile. She really does.

"Is...he," he's wheezing loudly, "is..." Blood pours from his mouth in choking coughs. Another coughing fit gushes out more, and he can't catch his breath without suffocating from it. "Is...is..." he keeps repeating. The blood bursts with every cough like a fountain and the sound of his drowning gasps fills the neighborhood.

She pushes his head to the side to keep him from choking. The sound of her brother-in-law drowning is mortifying. "He's okay, Linc," she nearly whispers, as if to shush him from trying to speak. The towel is drenched now, so she sets it aside. She can make out three entry marks on his upper chest. She applies pressure on them as hard as she can.

"... s'he...k?" he asks again. This time, his coughing is weak. It's so wet, and he's now gargling blood. It's draining out from his nose too.

"He's okay, he's okay," she reassures him, knowing he's in shock and hasn't been able to hear her. She looks over to see if Teresa had come outside again.

His chest is heaving, but he's not taking in a breath.

"Breathe, Linc." The panic is setting in now that she has to remind him to do that. She presses down harder to stir him, but he's not registering the pain at all. He's blinking sluggishly, fighting to stay awake. "Lincoln," she calls a little louder now, "Linc, sweetie. Breathe." She's answered by a faint bubbling. It's the sound of the weak stream of air escaping from his lungs and reacting with the blood that's pooled by his mouth.

And then it was quiet. God, she wishes to even go back to that deep, choking, drowning —that weak coughing that brought up blood and smothered him. Because that stupid car that she hated so much, the obnoxious mufflers he installed just to make her even madder, his thundering laughter that filled the house those days he'd come over —that was life. This quietness was not. Right now, she'd rather hear any other sound.

She just wants to look up again —to just check the end of the street for sign of the ambulance. But she doesn't dare look away this time.

 _This might be the last time she'd see him._

She buries that thought immediately.

There are no ambulance sirens to be heard yet in their quiet neighborhood.

Time moves slow at this home.


	5. Chapter 5

**This Home**

* * *

It's blue.

It's all blue until a hand forces his head to the side, and some color comes into view. He can make out Michael's house that's fading in and out of focus. He blinks sluggishly, but it's still blurry, because his eyes are fine. It's that brain isn't getting much blood, and now it's oxygen deprived because he's barely breathing. But he doesn't know that. He blinks again.

It doesn't feel like anything. His lungs feel heavy with fluid and there's a chill setting deep in his core, but nothing more. He's going into shock, but he doesn't know that, either. He tries to feel any pain but it's just not there. If he wasn't shot, then it must have been…

 **Mike.**

He doesn't hear Mikey anymore, and that's what truly, deeply hurts.

"Is he okay?" he strains, unsure if he even said it out loud.

It's just the house that he sees. Mike is gone. The edge of his vision starts to close in and and the colors start to leave.

"Is he okay?" he tries to shout.

* * *

The EMTs bag him immediately. Lincoln had lost consciousness just as they turned the street, and when they finally came, he had gone into respiratory arrest. They dragged his limp body from her and laid him on the stretcher. For a moment, Sara just wants to sit there and cry. That feeling of looming threat, she thought those days were behind her. She doesn't even want to start worrying about who it could have been, and who is after them again.

But Sarah gets up though. She wipes her face in the nook of her elbow and runs next door.

"Come on, Mikey," she says, exhausted now that her adrenaline is drained. She reaches down to where he's sitting on the steps of the porch and carries him. "Thanks, Teresa," she says quickly.

They ride in the back of the ambulance in silence. The rhythm of the ventilation bag force-feeding air into Linc, and the tunes of the monitors beeping out of sync play the soundtrack of their day.

* * *

 _Four missed calls._

He doesn't need to hear the voice mails, because he reads the single text from Sara and leaves the conference room without saying word.


	6. Chapter 6

**This Home**

* * *

They learn that Linc was hit with all _six_ bullets. So, she was pretty close, all things considered, and Lincoln would've teased her about her counting skills if he was anyplace else. One bullet —the one that had hit Mike, had gone straight through his lower side. And Linc would be relieved to hear that the others were caught in bone and didn't go through. They just shattered the upper rib cage. Both of his lungs were collapsed when they finally arrived at Mountain View Medical Center.

Michael was there to embrace Sara and rest his chin on her head like he's always done.

He held Sara as she spoke with a police officer. There wasn't much to disclose, only being able to mention what she had seen when she ran out, and passing on the neighbor's number.

He held Mike as the nurse cleaned out his wound, and in that soothing, whispered voice that Mike has come to recognize as _his_ dad's voice, Michael told the stories of his adventures in Panama as they anesthetized the site.

It stung. But for Michael and for Sara: it _seared._ It ripped, and it tore, and it shred.

Father and son sat in the chair.

Mike had an arm wrapped tightly around his dad's neck. He rested his head on his chest, engrossed in his story. The other arm hung loosely at his side as the nurse began to suture his shoulder. The pain was dull now that the anesthesia had some time.

"It's a pretty deep graze," the nurse lets them know. "Don't forget to put on the bacitracin before putting another bandage on it." Sara can only nod.

Michael walks out to the nurse's station to read the electronic board.

 _Patient #485925  
_ _OR 13 P. Ravi, S. Mitchell  
_ _elapsed 110 m / est remaining 130 m  
_ _MESSAGE: in surgery_

* * *

He comes back into the room to find Mike asleep in Sara's arms. They're cramped in the guest chair that's stiff and unforgiving.

"He's going to be another two hours." Michael says calmly, not because he's keeping it together, but because he hasn't fully come to terms with what's happened. But he's the one with the plans. "Hey," he squeezes Sara's shoulder and gives her a small smile.

She looks up at him like he's the first face she's seen all day.

"Let's go home." He's not suggesting. "I'll go in, get us a change of clothes." He looks at her, trying to read her. "...and then we'll go have dinner." He glances down at Mike, "Get him into bed..." Michael wipes his face with his hand as if somehow, it'd wipe the anxiety that's clouding his mind. "...and we'll come back here and see him when he's out."

Sara only nods obediently.


	7. Chapter 7

**This Home**

* * *

Sara stays in the car with Mike. She's sitting in the back seat with him, unknowingly kissing the top of his head every few minutes. He's a little bit drowsy from the pain medication, so he's snuggled in her arm and drifting in and out of sleep.

They pull into a diner and, for a moment, neither Sara nor Michael make a sound. Then, he takes in a deep breath, exhales slowly, and adjusts the rear view mirror to look at Sara. There isn't much to say, and even less _needed to be said_.

Inside, they have dinner.

"Uncle Lincoln isn't coming home anytime soon, is he?"

Mike's observant tendencies are so intuitive and deep-rooted, it catches him off guard —as if he hadn't fully grasped the reality that yes, this is _his_ son. Some days, he really hasn't. It surprises him constantly how much detail and subtlety Mike notices, much more than he lets on. It's hard to submit to the fact that this ten year old boy is capable of having such emotional and heavy assessments. But he doesn't sugar coat it. Maybe to anyone else, let alone a child, but not to _his_ son.

He shakes his head slightly, then makes a quick glance at Sara. "He's in pretty bad shape," Michael reaches out and takes hold of his hand, in part, to comfort his boy. In large, though, it was for him to be sure in this moment that he hadn't lost everything. "Your mom and I are going back in a few hours to see him."

"Let me come with you!" He says, already knowing his place in their plan.

"No, you need to get some sleep, baby," Sara finally joins in, hushing him with her whispered voice.

"I can't go to school tomorrow, right?" he says quieter.

"That's not the point. You need to sleep."

His eyebrows furrow just a bit, and he looks away from their gaze.

"I'll tell you what," Michael proposes, "You get a good night's rest tonight. If you're feeling a lot better tomorrow, you can spend the night with uncle Lincoln at the center."

His face lights up immediately. It's so precious to Sara that for a second, she can't find it in herself to be furious of Michael's deal. "Finish you food," she ends up adding. Michael squeezes her knee, grateful.

* * *

Mike is fast asleep in the back.

"Michael, we can't go home," she nearly begged him. Her eyes are wild, unable to settle on any one place. She wants to keep them all in her sight, terrified because if— no, _whenever_ she looks away, she loses another part of her. "We don't -we… whoever did this could come back."

"I know." He places his hands on her shoulders and it reminds her to take a deep breath.

* * *

The three head over to Lincoln's apartment. Mike is awakened by the series of speed bumps in the parking lot of the complex.

He's carried inside, though he's too sleepy to realize it. But he gets one last burst of alertness when the smell of his uncle suddenly greets him. He's in his uncle's bed. He doesn't need to ask why or make any comments about it. Instead, he welcomes it and turns over so that he's lying face down into the pillow. He lifts his head up and to the side just in time to see his dad pull the blanket over him.

"Good night," he says. Always.

Michael smiles and looks at him for a bit too long. "Night," he finally replies, and sweeps his hair from his forehead.

Mike watched his mom and dad leave with the bedroom door open and the hallway lights kept on. He wished he could come with them to be with his uncle through his first night in the hospital.

He wasn't afraid of sleeping all alone.

It's just that he knows uncle Linc doesn't like hospitals, he's told him once before. He wondered if his mom and dad knew that. His uncle shares a lot of things with him when they play out in the yard or go walking on the trails behind the house. And if he were there tonight, they could talk about more things like that —almost secrets. Nobody would ever guess it, but his uncle Linc was afraid of a lot of things. A lot of things made him mad, but a lot of things made him scared, too. He'd have them play a game or watch something on the TV so he wouldn't have to think about those things.

No, he wasn't afraid of sleeping alone; he was afraid of uncle Linc having to sleep alone.


End file.
